Negotiators Avert Strike in Port Talks

By

Cameron McWhirter and

Shelly Banjo

Updated Dec. 28, 2012 7:40 p.m. ET

Negotiators averted a potential longshoremen's strike that would have stopped container cargo at U.S. ports from Boston to Houston beginning Sunday, but the tentative agreement came too late to prevent retailers from rerouting spring products deliveries.

Federal mediator George Cohen said on Friday that talks "in principle" resolved a major sticking point, a decades-old agreement that pays union members a royalty based on...